As the recent performance by Radiohead, in defiance of Palestinian and international appeals, has lucidly shown, what matters most is not whether artists performing in Tel Aviv support Israel’s grave crimes against the Palestinian people or not but how Israel will irrespectively use their performances to portray a false image for itself, covering up its human rights violations.

Dozens of tweets from Israeli officials and Israel lobby groups, as well as US right-wing pundits, gloated over Radiohead’s decision to violate the cultural boycott, with a leading right-wing Israeli newspaper describing the band’s decision to cross the Palestinian boycott picket line as the best gift of “hasbara [propaganda] Israel has received lately.” Israel, after all, sees “culture as a hasbara tool of the first rank,” as a ranking Israeli official once admitted.